UTSA Roadrunners vs Louisiana Tech Bulldogs Game Preview and Prediction - 10/23/2021

Game Time: 7:00 pm ET, Saturday, October 23, 2021

Venue:  Joe Aillet Stadium, Ruston, LA

Where to Watch:  Stadium

DraftKings:  Point Spread:  UTSA -7, LT +7; Over/Under:  60 points

Bet365:  Point Spread:  UTSA -6.5, LT +6.5; Over/Under:  59.5 points

BetMGM:  Point Spread:  UTSA -6.5, LT +6.5; Over/Under:  59.5 points

 

UTSA Roadrunners:  7-0 (1st place, C-USA West)

Louisiana Tech Bulldogs:  2-4 (4th place, C-USA West)

 

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UTSA Roadrunners:  won at home on Oct. 16 against the Rice Owls 45-0.

Louisiana Tech Bulldogs:  lost on the road on Oct. 16 against the UTEP Miners 19-3.

 

 

 

UTSA is coming into this college football game with a 7-0 record overall and they are 3-0 in their road games this season where they will be in this game. This will be their 4th conference matchup this year and they are off to a great start with a 3-0 record in their conference games this season. Their 3 wins came against the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders, the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, and against Rice in their last game. They dominated Rice in their last game completely shutting them out in a 45-0 win. Frank Harris had a good game but did not need to do much as he completed 12/19 passes for 125 yards and 2 touchdowns. Sincere McCormick led the team in rushing with 117 yards on 13 carries while B.J. Daniels and Harris score the other TDs on the ground in that one. Joshua Cephus led the receivers with 63 yards and 2 touchdowns on 4 receptions in what was a pretty quiet day for the receiving corps. Rashad Wisdom led the defense with 4 solo tackles and 2 assisted ones in that game. Charles Wiley and Trevor Harmanson both led the defense in sacks with 1 each while Harmonson along with Corey Mayfield Jr. both had 1 interception each in that game. They have scored 270 points in their 7 games this season averaging 38.6 PPG and they have allowed their opponents to score 134 points against them allowing 19.1 PPG. Their offense is averaging 446.3 YPG while the UTSA defense is allowing 323.3 YPG.

 

 

LT is coming into this game with a 2-4 record overall and they are 2-1 in their home games this season where they will be in this game. This will be the 3rd conference matchup on their schedule and they are currently 1-1 in their conference games this season. Their 1 win came against the North Texas Mean Green while their 1 loss came against UTEP in their last game. They were awful in their last game as they could not even muster up a TD getting shut out in 3 quarters of that game only scoring 3 points in the end. Austin Kendall struggled a lot in that game as he completed 14/28 passes for 164 yards and 3 interceptions. Marcus Williams Jr led the team in rushing with 42 yards on 7 carries but they did not get anything going on the ground in that one. Williams Jr also led the receivers in that game with 59 yards on 2 receptions while Smoke Harris had 40 yards on 3 receptions in what was a very quiet day for the receiving corps. Trey Baldwin led the defense with 8 solo tackles and 4 assisted ones. Tyler Grubbs had the only sack in that game while Jaiden Cole came away with the only interception for the defense in that one. They have scored 170 points in their first 6 games averaging 28.3 PPG and they have allowed their opponents to score 186 points against them allowing 31 PPG. Their offense is averaging 391 YPG while their defense is allowing 457.3 YPG.

 

UTSA is coming into this game as a 7 point favorite with the current betting odds according to Draftkings Sportsbook. LT has not looked good in their last few games and they were not able to get anything going for them on offense in their last game. UTSA is undefeated and has a lot of confidence coming into this one now that they have been ranked in the top 25 for the first time in program history. They will not want to give that rank up so they will be looking to lay a hurt down on LT in this one. The best bet to place in this game is on UTSA to cover the spread here as they have looked like the better team on both offense and defense in their recent games.

 

UTSA Louisiana Tech Prediction:  Our NCAAF Pick for Saturday, October 23, 2021 (7:00 pm ET start time) is UTSA 38 LT 14.

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UTSA Roadrunners: 48-61 O/U in all games. 15-29 O/U as a favorite. 24-32 O/U in road games. 31-41 O/U against conference opponents.

Louisiana Tech Bulldogs: 146-137 ATS in all games. 27-21 ATS as an underdog of 3.5 to 10 points. 34-24 ATS when the total is between 56.5 and 63. 73-71 ATS as an underdog. 19-13 ATS as a home underdog. 58-52 ATS in home games. 90-80 ATS against conference opponents.

 

 

UTSA Roadrunners:  B. Brady (RB) Ques Sat - Undisclosed injury. K. Davis (C) Out indefinitely - Undisclosed injury.

Louisiana Tech Bulldogs:  J. Head (QB) Ques Sat - Undisclosed injury. L. Anthony (QB) Out Indefinitely - Ankle injury.

 

 

UTSA Roadrunners: Sincere McCormick is one player to watch in this contest. He leads his team in rushing yards and in touchdowns scored this season. He is coming off of a game where he led his team in rushing with over 100 in that game. UTSA will be looking to dominate them on the ground here and that starts with McCormick so look for him to get a lot of touches in this game and rip off some big runs against this Louisiana Tech defense.

 

Louisiana Tech Bulldogs: Marcus Williams Jr is one player to watch here. He leads his team in rushing yards this season. He is coming off of a game where he led the team in rushing and also led them in receiving yards. He is one of their best weapons and biggest playmakers and they will need him at his best to win this game. Look for them to get the ball in his hands at every chance they get and try to get him going early in this one.

 

 

"We are going talk about it because we have to know how to handle it and answer the question. It is a fine line. We want to be humans, have fun and enjoy things too, but at the same time, how many hours are we spending on stuff that does not have anything to do with the Louisiana Tech game? You have to be very careful. From monitoring social media to media requests, everything, we all have to balance that fine line of how much we enjoy it versus how much we are studying Louisiana Tech. Those kids are on the second part of their semester after receiving their midterm grades last week. It is always a balance." - Jeff Traylor the UTSA players’ reaction to being ranked in the top 25 after their last win.

 

 

“It certainly wasn’t one of our better performances. I’m very disappointed with the way we performed on Saturday. There was certainly some silver lining in what happened Saturday in watching the progression of our defense and watching the way that they really came to life after the first quarter. In the first two possessions, we gave up 14 points and went down the field and scored. They did a great job on first and second down, but on third and long we gave up conversions. There were about four of them in the first two drives that were 3rd and 7-plus that we gave up and they went down and scored. But, after that, David Blackwell did a nice job of making some adjustments.” - Skip Holtz on his team’s performance in their loss to UTEP.

 

 

 

WR De'Corian Clark

WR Zakhari Franklin 

WR Cephus, Joshua 

TE Watson, Leroy 

QB Harris, Frank 

RB McCormick, Sincere 

 

WR Emilus, Samuel 

WR Graham, Isaiah 

WR Harris, Smoke 

WR Hebert, Griffin 

QB Kendall, Austin 

RB Williams Jr., Marcus 

 

 

Passing: F. Harris (1600)

Rushing: S. McCormick (778)

Receiving: J. Cephus (520)

Touchdowns: S. McCormick (6)

Sacks: T. Bell II (3.5)

Tackles: R. Wisdom (31)

 

Passing: A. Kendall (1342)

Rushing: M. Williams Jr. (359)

Receiving: S. Harris (284)

Touchdowns: A. Kendall (3)

Sacks: B. Bell (3)

Tackles: T. Baldwin (25)

 

Coaches:

UTSA Roadrunners: Jeff Traylor (2nd season)

Louisiana Tech Bulldogs: Skip Holtz (9th season)

 

85 degrees F sunny, 59% humidity, 0% chance of rain, up to 7 mph wind speeds S.